Southeast Missouri State University sponsors Lift for Life Academy, a charter school that was the first of its kind to open in the St. Louis area.

The school enrolls about 575 students and has been sponsored by Southeast since 2000. It started off as a middle school and expanded through the 12th grade in fall of 2011.

The Southeast Board of Regents approved an extension on Oct. 19 for a five-year contract with Lift for Life that will continue Southeast's sponsorship of the organization.

Vice president of the Board of Regents Jim Limbaugh said the board chose to sponsor the Lift For Life Academy because it was going to be governed by a volunteer board of directors made up of community leaders, rather than a private management company like other proposed charter schools.

"Southeast wanted to get involved in creating an academic pathway for St. Louis students," Limbaugh said. "Forty percent of our enrollment comes from the metro St. Louis area, so it was definitely a good investment for us to get involved with Lift for Life."

Limbaugh said the most important goal is to get students excited about postsecondary education, but they are not required to attend Southeast.

"Public schools in St. Louis are tough and the educational outcomes are not always very good," Limbaugh said. "Charter schools are more structured, so there is less distraction. We chose to sponsor Lift for Life Academy because they seemed to have a vision for consistency and continuity in learning."

Southeast freshman Dionne Wagner started attending Lift for Life in the sixth grade. She said that her experiences with public schools before that were rocky because there was a different principal every year at the public school she attended.

"I remember when my mom enrolled me in Lift for Life," Wagner said. "My first year there they were already giving us a tour of Southeast University and encouraging us to think about college. I don't think I'd be at a university without Lift for Life's encouragement. Public schools don't offer the same opportunities."

According to Dr. Bill Eddleman, vice provost and dean of the School of Graduate Studies, Lift for Life recieves $60,000 for administrative needs from the state of Missouri thanks to Southeast's sponsorship.

The founder of Lift for Life, Marshall Cohen, said that students who attend the academy come from St. Louis' poorest neighborhoods.

"Lift for Life Academy hopes to give parents another choice," Cohen said. "We focus on getting St. Louis students academically caught up. We are more hands-on than public schools and place emphasis on postsecondary education. We offer another choice for parents."

According to Lift for Life's website, 95 percent of the students at the academy are African-American and over 90 percent of students live in households with incomes below the national poverty level.

The academy's website says that most new students enroll with reading and math skills 1-3 years below their grade level. Lift for Life's attendance rate was 95 percent in fall 2011, as opposed to 86 percent in the St. Louis Public Schools.

Recent research has been done on the effectiveness of charter school education and how it compares to the public school system in the St. Louis area.

A not-for-profit leadership organization called Focus St. Louis did a study on 17 charter schools in the St. Louis area during the 2010-2011 school year.

Focus St. Louis concluded that "charter schools can provide a powerful model for improving educational options in low-performing school districts. However, according to the latest data, while many charter schools are performing better than the traditional St. Louis public schools, none of the 17 charter schools meet statewide academic standards."

The report emphasized that test scores are not the only way to judge charter schools' performance. It said one problem with MAP testing is that it does not take into account where students started. A student may have improved immensely but still not meet state standards. The report also stated that charter schools are still the better alternative to public schools, even though they still need improvement in some areas.

Limbaugh is sure that since Lift for Life now accommodates students until they graduate, it will be able to keep its students' education more consistent.

"Expanding the curriculum through high school is important because the middle school students won't have to go back to [public] school in St. Louis and possibly get lost in the shuffle," Limbaugh said. "Hopefully the students' experiences at [Lift for Life Academy] will give them the desire to continue their education. This expansion is a big challenge, and the potential is significant. Growth for growth's sake is not always better. What we are much more interested in is outcome."